chance encounter with a girl i used to know
by sirrryesssirrr
Summary: Santana Finds Aphasia back in her life. Santana/Aphasia, side Santana/Brittany.


**Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.**

* * *

She'll be damned.

She realizes not a moment too soon that she knows the young woman passing her by on the phone, talking animatedly about pockets or something. She doesn't think she can forget someone like her and she's met her fair share of…unique individuals. She slows her pace towards the library as she tries to subtly get a good look at the approaching woman who doesn't seem to notice anyone existing around her.

When the woman flips her hair and carries on walking, Santana's certain she's not imagining things. That's Aphasia.

She doesn't have time to mull over the very real possibility that Aphasia attends the same college because she's already running late for study hall.

/

"Hey, Santana."

She turns to face her teammate, Hannah, who's giving her an inquisitive look from her desk. She runs a hand through her hair and drops her pen between the pages.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay? You look distracted."

She sighs and crosses her arms, glaring at her textbook. "I am."

Hannah looks at her carefully. "Is it about Brittany?"

She hides the sharp intake of breath and throws a small smile towards her roommate. She hasn't really thought about Brittany, not really, and for now she wants to keep it that way.

"No. I just saw this girl who attended one of the schools my old glee club competed with."

"On campus?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"Does she go here?"

She shrugs, but decides to push her focus back on her book. "Maybe." She doesn't look up and Hannah has a good enough sense to take that as a sign to drop the conversation. She doesn't know if Aphasia attends the same school she does, but she'll find out soon enough.

/

She's surprised that with whatever history she and Aphasia had, short as it may have been, she never got Aphasia's last name. Now she's stuck trying to figure it out. When she types out the other girl's name in the student directory, she's met with five different search results. She can take a wild guess out of the three names listed as freshman, but she wants certainty and that certainty comes in a Sectionals program that is currently packed up with the rest of her high school things in her room.

Her first instinct is to call Brittany, but she nixes that idea immediately. Time and distance, she reminds herself. So instead she calls Tina. She'd have called Rachel, but she doesn't think she has that kind of time this afternoon. She has other shit to do.

"What's up, Santana?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Do I have to sell my body?"

"No."

"Okay, then sure."

She asks Tina to scour through the old competition programs for Jane Addams Academy school and search for Aphasia's full name. It's the only good lead she has.

With a promise to come visit for some family dim sum next time she's back in Lima, she hangs up and switches gears to confirm one of the three names on her screen.

She's not sure what she's expecting from doing any of this. She just wants to satiate her curiosity because it's been nagging at her.

She hopes that this doesn't bite her in the ass.

/

She's not the biggest believer in fate, not anymore she thinks, but she's certain that she'd regret it if she doesn't do something when she spots Aphasia sitting at one of the tables in the student center. It's been a while since she's seen her.

The bangs have long since been grown out, but she's kept the slim figure. She looks even more toned – athletic, even – from the last that Santana's gotten a chance to see her. She looks good, Santana admits. Then again, she can't recall a time when Aphasia didn't.

Aphasia is sitting with her legs crossed under the table, quickly jotting down notes from her textbook. The whole thing surprises Santana, but she doesn't say a word. She's a different person now; who's to say Aphasia hasn't changed either.

With a last push for courage, she licks her dried lips and strolls casually towards the table and takes the seat across from Aphasia, a smirk on her lips.

"Well, well," she starts when Aphasia glances up from her notes, stunned to see her. Aphasia bounces back from her surprise and leans back in her chair, tossing her pen towards the book, her eyes fixed on Santana.

"Can I help you?" Aphasia asks with a quirk of her brow. Her voice carries the same kind of edge that reminds her of their Lima Heights roots. For a second, she's transported back to sophomore year of high school.

She cocks her head a little to the side. "You don't remember me, do you?"

Aphasia chuckles a little to herself. "I remember you just fine, honey," she says dragging her last word out, her own smirk mirroring Santana's.

"What are you doing here?" she asks when she gestures around them.

"Business." She knows this already, after she zeroes in on the name that matches the text from Tina and finds the declared major underneath it. But she nods approvingly, remembering how Aphasia had goals to make her money more legitimately. "You?"

"Cheerleading."

Aphasia doesn't bat a lash as if she's not surprised, and maybe she's not. She doesn't move a muscle, just maintains the gaze to match Aphasia in front of her. They're sizing each other up – she knows that – so she keeps still and waits for the other girl to react.

"Are you still gung ho about that blonde friend of yours?" Aphasia asks leaning forward to close her book shut, pen wedged in place, before pushing it to the side.

She tenses, but keeps still so as not to give herself away. She expected this, though she hoped it wouldn't have reached this part so quickly. But Santana doesn't afford herself the time to think about why Aphasia would mention her - how she's been harboring the same feelings for years; feelings that are more apparent to some than others, present company included. What the two of them had was nothing but random bouts of temptation spent in hiding, nothing but a blip in time of her life. She'd almost forgotten it if it wasn't for chancing upon this woman all over again, here of all places.

She's always been soft when it comes to Brittany, but she doesn't owe it to anybody to explain why she's keeping these thoughts to herself. Least of all Aphasia. So she clears her throat and shakes her head.

"She's a thing of the past." The words sound hollow, even for her, but it's believable enough. Aphasia purses her lips before nodding.

It's not the oddest meeting she's had, but there's definitely something about it that gnaws at the back of her head. She's a little bit older now, a little bit wiser; she's more herself than she's ever been, but she's also a little more lost without Brittany to act as her buoy.

Aphasia plays along and humors her whether she knows it or not. And she'll take it. She'll take anything that can help her move forward; besides it doesn't hurt to have some kind of ally in this place.

She never knows, she might end up needing Aphasia's help someday.

/

That someday comes only two weeks after Aphasia dances her way back into her life. It started as a casual thing. They've spoken only a handful of times since she walked up to her at the student center. But each one escalates, one flirtier than the next. She can appreciate the game, because that's all it is. She could never have had this kind of dalliance with Aphasia years back when they first met; it wouldn't have worked. She'd have been all false bravado and Aphasia wouldn't have known what to do with her. It would have failed and they would have crashed.

But now, when she gets three confirming texts from Tina that Brittany has forged a relationship with someone as good a person as Sam, she thinks she needs to punish herself for it.

She doesn't consider anyone else. That should have raised some red flags, but she can't see those when she's wrapped herself in her own white flag.

She finds the two of them locked in one of the sixth floor bathrooms of the library when she finds Aphasia there studying. She's up against the tiled walls with Aphasia's body pressed up on her with their face dangerously close to one another.

She runs her tongue by her teeth before smirking as she watches Aphasia just run her eyes all over her.

"You don't remember this, do you?"

Aphasia sneers before pushing her face even closer to hers. "I remember this just fine, honey."

When Aphasia kisses her, the first thing Santana notices is how different she tastes but how nothing has changed. Aphasia tastes like spearmint gum and escape; the last lips she kissed tasted like strawberry lip balm and home. Aphasia tugs at her wrists to stay still as she's pinned to the wall. When she pushes for control, she gets shoved back in her place. She relents and turns her head to the side, exposing her neck for Aphasia's taking. Her hands, having been abandoned for other parts of her body, move up to Aphasia's neck and she pulls her closer.

As Aphasia trails her way down her torso, she gets a glimpse of herself on the mirror on the other side of the wall where she witnesses where she is. She shuts her eyes not wanting to remind herself of how she got here.

When she looks away, she pulls Aphasia back up and switches their places. Aphasia tries to fight her, but she growls back earning her a curious look. She ignores it – just aims for capturing Aphasia's lips.

She's transported back to high school when she'd drive to Aphasia's neighborhood to pick her up before parking at some dirt road and settling in the back of her car. It's the same kind of urgency in their movements, hands on breasts and legs, mouths on vast expanses of skin. There was no grace in their movements and she liked it that way. She didn't want grace or elegance; nothing about keeping secrets felt graceful or elegant. It was all rhythm, no soul.

Being with Aphasia was nothing more than a carnal agreement and nothing more. She hid because she had to and Aphasia wanted to take what wasn't hers.

And now some years later, in a library bathroom, Santana finds herself repeating her past.

/

It becomes a routine that she settles into all too comfortably. She attends her classes, goes to cheerleading practice and games, and fucks Aphasia in bathrooms around campus.

So far they're at twelve new bathrooms, four of which are in different floors of the library. She almost loses her grip on the sink counters when Aphasia tells her that they may as well make a visit to the other floors to achieve some kind of record.

But Aphasia holds her steady when she pulls her jeans and underwear down and plants her face in her crotch as if she was meant to be doing that. Santana barely has time to utter a wrangled '_Occupied!_' when someone outside jiggles the handle attempting to get in.

A little while later, she peeks outside of the bathroom door and leaves first. She's always the first one to go; it just seems to fit her.

When she glances back, Aphasia is always walking the other way as if they didn't just make the small, cramped bathroom reek of sex. It's inappropriate to think that Aphasia would consider their arrangement as anything more than what it is.

Her roommate leaves to visit her boyfriend in Indiana. She doesn't even question her actions when she texts Aphasia about this piece of information.

When Aphasia reaches her dorm, there's a layer of awkwardness that Santana is fighting so hard from settling over them. They've never interacted on purpose without a bathroom stall as their final destination. She's not prepared for this, whatever this may be.

"A'ight, I know you have something in mind but I am forreal starvin'. You texted me on my way to get some pizza so you either go with me or you wait 'til I'm fed."

Santana laughs despite herself because this is fairly new territory for the two of them and she's cautious on how to approach the next steps.

"Let's go. Pizza sounds fucking amazing right now." Aphasia doesn't bother to wait for her, just gets up from the desk chair and heads towards the door. "You can wait five fucking seconds for me to get my wallet, jeeze," she offers as she plucks her wallet from her purse. Aphasia laughs at her but turns around at the threshold of the room.

"Oh, you buyin'?"

"That's not what I said, but I can. It's whatever," she says, shrugging.

When she pushes the main door open so the two of them can pass, she almost lets it go when she hears Aphasia behind her even though she manages a small amused smile.

"I like this; you can be my suga mama."

/

Eating dinner together is nothing like all of their other interactions. Aphasia is joking with her, casually pointing and judging at the people who pass their table, telling her whose pockets are the easiest to steal from. Their conversation topics start out in safer territories. But Aphasia looks at her with a curious expression on her face, something that she never recalled ever seeing before, and thinks that she knows more than she lets on.

"You clean up nice," she teases.

Aphasia huffs indignantly, but Santana can tell she doesn't really mean it. "You gotta show people up around here. Bring your A game and all that shit. Gotta talk all proper because that's what they wanna hear."

"So I guess you're done with jackin' everybody's wallets?"

"Just gotta do what you gotta do, you know?" Aphasia asks shrugging. Santana finds herself in some kind of twilight zone listening to a more tempered Aphasia. Before, it was just sharp edges and the determination to prove everyone wrong. Santana thinks that she's still out to prove herself, but she's not as reckless as she once were.

Before she has a fighting chance to redirect the conversation, it's turned back to her and she's cornered in their booth with the words of her heartbreak.

"We tried to make it work, but we're at different places right now," she says, soft with each word as if reciting them punched her in the mouth. She's still hoping for when they're back in each other's orbits, but that time is all too far away for her.

"She hookin' up with anybody else back home?"

She takes a deep breath and lets the air back out through her nose, doing her best to calm herself. "I don't know," she says, but she's sure Aphasia hears the 'yes' underneath.

"You a fucked up bitch," Aphasia finally states after she balls her napkin and places it beside her plate. "You a fucked up dyke who ain't never gonna move on. Not when we were kids, and not now."

The words should hurt for the truth they carry. But when Aphasia says them with a slight amusement tinging her voice, Santana sees herself in the circle she's been walking for so long that she can't help but laugh. She's heard them all before, said them to herself more times than she can count.

There's something sobering about a mere stranger pinpointing her very downfall.

"Please tell me more," she suggests, traces of laughter still on her lips even if the words smash against the walls of her ribs.

Aphasia doesn't, though. Just lets her words linger in the space between them.

"Y'all's glee club was a fucking trainwreck," Aphasia comments finally. Santana welcomes this escape route.

She nods. "We were a fucking mess."

"But y'all got good. I saw when y'all made it to Nationals."

"Thanks."

The silence isn't comfortable, but it's easier than silence with herself.

"Let's get some doughnuts before we go back to your place." Santana complies and they head towards the Dunkin Donuts next door. "You still payin', though."

/

When they get back to her dorm, she doesn't think about how she'd just paid for dinner and dessert for the two of them. She could technically count it as a date, but that would rename what they have into something else, something she's not ready for. And Aphasia isn't here for that – or she hasn't made any mentions of wanting that.

What she does do is let Aphasia take the reins between the two of them. Aphasia's the one whose bottom lip she's sucking, the sugar of the donuts lingering. Aphasia's the one who's shoving her on the bed and crawling on top of her, arms caging her on either side. Aphasia's the one who's pushing her legs apart and placing one of hers between them, bucking her hips down just a little, just enough to let her know who's in control. Aphasia's the one who's making her arch forward just enough to unhook her bra. Aphasia's the one who lets her tongue run over her hard nipples and smirking as she moans from the touch. Aphasia's the one who's encouraging her to come for her while she has her fingers inside of Santana, her warm breath hitting the nook of Santana's neck.

Aphasia's the one that's with her now, and that's going to have to be good enough for her.

/

She doesn't text Aphasia the next day. Instead, she spends all of Saturday by herself. She even turns down an invitation to a frat party that night from her teammates. She doesn't bother to offer an excuse, just arches a daring brow towards Hannah who steers the rest of their friends to leave.

Aphasia shows up Sunday unannounced by her door.

"How the hell did you get in the building?" she asks even as she opens the door wider and lets her guest in.

"It ain't that hard when you have a vagina."

She snorts but reclaims her spot on the futon, her television on a rerun episode of Hoarders. Being in Aphasia's company is nowhere near being in Brittany's company. She's not sure if this is going to become a thing, if Aphasia is somehow going to sneak herself into Santana's life much the same way Brittany did. Where she started with Brittany as friends and ended with benefits, it's the opposite with Aphasia.

It's difficult not to compare, but when something – someone – fills a void where there didn't used to be one, it feels inevitable to do so.

Aphasia takes the empty space beside her and remarks on how she's going to fucking vomit if they keep watching this old woman talk about her collection of dead cats.

"This is fucking rank. I'm about to puke and I haven't even eaten lunch yet."

"Is that why you're here?"

Aphasia pulls herself back and tilts her head to the side, her eyes challenging. "Bitch, did you forget you my suga mama now?"

The playful smirk on Aphasia's lips betrays her and Santana can settle for this, at least for now. Aphasia doesn't seem to mind holding onto someone that's not hers, anyway.

"I remember just fine, honey," she teases even as she turns the television off and retrieves her wallet, Aphasia already heading to the door.


End file.
